Empathy begins with awareness of another
person's feelings. It would be easier to be aware of
other people's emotions if they would simply tell us how
they felt. But since most people do not, we must resort
to asking questions, reading between the lines, guessing,
and trying to interpret non-verbal cues. Emotionally
expressive people are easiest to read because their eyes
and faces are constantly letting us know how they are
feeling.

Once we have figured out how
another person feels, we show empathy by acknowledging
the emotion. We may say, for example,

- I can see you are really
uncomfortable about this.
- I can understand why you would be upset.

We can also show empathy through a
simple sign of affection such as hug or a tender touch.
Though empathy is usually used in reference to sensing
someone else's painful feelings, it can also apply to
someone's positive feelings of success, accomplishment,
pride, achievement etc. In this case a "high
five" would also be a sign of empathy.

To show empathy is to identify with
another's feelings. It is to emotionally put yourself in
the place of another. The ability to empathize is
directly dependent on your ability to feel your own
feelings and identify them.

If you have never felt a certain feeling, it will be hard
for you to understand how another person is feeling. This
holds equally true for pleasure and pain. If, for
example, you have never put your hand in a flame, you
will not know the pain of fire. If you have not
experienced sexual passion, you will not understand its
power. Similarly, if you have never felt rebellious or
defiant, you will not understand those feelings. Reading
about a feeling and intellectually knowing about it is
very different than actually experiencing it for
yourself.

Among those with an equal level of
innate emotional
intelligence, the person
who has actually experienced the widest range and variety
of feelings -- the great depths of depression and the
heights of fulfillment, for example, -- is the one who is
most able to empathize with the greatest number of people
from all walks of life. On the other hand, when we say
that someone "can't relate" to other people, it
is likely because they haven't experienced, acknowledged
or accepted many feelings of their own.

Once you have felt discriminated
against, for example, it is much easier to relate with
someone else who has been discriminated against. Our
innate emotional intelligence gives us the ability to
quickly recall those instances and form associations when
we encounter discrimination again. We then can use the
"reliving" of those emotions to guide our
thinking and actions. This is one of the ways nature
slowly evolves towards a higher level of survival. In
other words, over time, awareness of our own feelings may
lead us to treat others in a more pro-survival way.

For this process to work, the first
step is that we must be able to experience our own
emotions. This means we must be open to them and not
distract ourselves from them or try to numb ourselves
from our feelings through drugs, alcohol, etc.

Next, we need to become aware of
what we are actually feeling -- to acknowledge, identify,
and accept our feelings. Only then can we empathize with
others. That is one reason it is important to work on
your own emotional awareness and sensitivity-- in other
words, to be "in touch with" your feelings. --
and to help children stay in touch with their feelings

In one of the Mayer et al
studies, many variables were measured. Of these many
variables, sensitivity was found to have the highest
correlation to emotional intelligence as they define and
measure it. (Selecting a Measure of Emotional
Intelligence) It can be assumed that empathy and
sensitivity are also significantly correlated. By
definition sensitive people are more likely to notice
someone else's feelings and to feel something themselves.
But even those who are not naturally sensitive, or do not
have a high natural level of EI, can take steps to show
more sensitivity to the feelings of others.

A basic guideline for showing
sensitivity to someone is to not invalidate their
feelings by belittling, diminishing, rejecting, judging,
or ignoring them. Even just a simple acknowledgment
without any real empathy is much better than totally
ignoring someone's feeling. (See section on invalidation)

Sensitivity also means being
receptive to others' cues, particularly the non-verbal
ones such as facial expressions. This is similar to a
highly sensitive radio antenna which can pick up faint
signals. The more information you are able to receive,
the more you can help them and yourself. By the way, a
person can never actually be "too sensitive"
any more than someone can be too intelligent. It is only
a question of how they use the information their extra
sensitivity is giving them.

Empathy
is closely related to compassion, but empathy both
precedes compassion and is a pre-requisite for
compassion. When we feel empathy for someone we are
getting emotional information about them and their
situation. By collecting information about other people's
feelings, you get to know them better. As you get to know
others on an emotional level, you are likely to see
similarities between your feelings and theirs, and
between your basic emotional needs and theirs. When you
realize that someone else's basic emotional needs are
similar to yours, you are more able to identify with
them, relate to them and empathize with them.

All humans share similar emotional
needs. (See human
emotional needs) The wide
variety among our needs is mostly a difference in degree,
rather than in type. For example, we all need to feel
some degree of freedom, but one person may need more
freedom than another.

Compassion can be defined as a
combination of empathy and understanding. Greater empathy
gives you greater information, and the more information
you have on something, the more likely you are to
understand it. Higher emotional intelligence makes
possible a greater capacity for such understanding. Thus,
the logical sequence is as follows: Higher emotional
sensitivity and awareness leads to higher levels of
empathy. This leads to higher levels of understanding
which then leads to higher levels of compassion.

Haim Ginott wrote that "It takes time and wisdom
to realize that the personal parallels the universal and
what pains one man pains mankind." Now we might add
that it also takes highly developed emotional
intelligence.

Those who are not in touch with their own
feelings are not likely to have a sense of conscience.
They may feel no remorse, no guilt for causing harm to
others. As could be expected, studies show that such
people are unlikely to respond to rehabilitation.

One thing which could easily cause
a person to lose touch with his own feelings and to lose
his natural sense of conscience is an extremely painful
childhood and adolescence. Such people have experienced
so much pain that they shut themselves from it. This pain
may have come from physical, sexual or emotional abuse.
The end result though is similar. They do not experience
their own pain, so they have no compassion for the pain
of another. Nor do they have any empathy.

They are also likely to be
extremely needy. In other words they have many, and deep,
unmet emotional needs. As adults, they will have
developed elaborate defense mechanisms in an attempt to
block the pain coming from both these unmet needs and
from the guilt they would feel if they allowed themselves
to feel.

In the absence of a conscience,
behavior must be controlled by fear, threats and
punishment, or by separation from society. This comes at
tremendous social cost, and evidently is ineffective,
given the overcrowded prisons and rising fines.

It seems that laws are really only
needed when conscience has failed. We might say that the
more laws a society needs, the less emotionally
intelligent.

In one of their 1990 publications Salovey
and Mayer hypothesized that there was a positive
relationship between empathy and emotional intelligence.
Since then their studies have indeed shown this to be the
case, (using their test which tries to measure IE). (See Emotional intelligence meets
traditional standards for an intelligence.)Still, their definition of EI
and their detailed chart of its many aspects does not
mention empathy -- something which is a bit puzzling.
Upon reflection though, it does seem possible that one
could feel too much empathy, to the point where they
become overly-affected by another person's moods, for
example, in an unhealthy co-dependent relationship.

Therefore, it seems to make sense
that while our innate emotional sensitivity gives us the
ability to feel empathy, our emotional intelligence helps
us decide what to do when we feel empathy and what to do
when someone else's moods are affecting us too much.

Even though it may be possible to
sometimes feel too much empathy, many people, including
the new President of the USA, Barack Obama, believe
empathy is something we could use more of in society. In
fact it is likely that our human ability to empathize is
one of the main ways our emotions contribute to the
survival of the species.

Honesty and empathy
.... can also be extended towards oneself as part of
a personal dialogue for resolving internal conflict.

Self-empathy is
praticed by clarifying ones observations and
feelings, then connecting with the underlying met or unmet needs. Typically, this is followed by simply
sitting compassionately with oneself thinking
something like: No wonder I feel so the
need for is so important to my
well-being, until the emotional tension
relaxes.

I have noticed that
the self-empathy process may be engaged for several
purposes. These include self-calming, increased
self-respect, increased personal accountability, and
increased empathy or mutual respect towards
others feelings and needs through greater
awareness of ones own feelings and needs. Many
of the practitioners I spoke with also engage
self-empathy because they find that afterwards they
are less attached to strategies or evaluations and
are better able to creatively generate requests of
themselves, or others, in order to meet their needs.